Water leak in heater: 1, lathe bed: 0

Quite the little coincidence occurred today. My wood-shop teacher lent me some lubricant protector for my cast-iron table tops on my tools because I told him they were unprotected, he’s a great guy. So, when I get home from school and go to the shop to apply it, what do I see? The last foot of my lathe bed full of rust from a leak in the heater above it. Lets just say I was not very happy. I am guessing some of it was just rust drops from the ceiling, as there is a now a stain on the concrete about 4 inches beside it. But no doubt was the rust damage on my lathe. Here’s what It looked like:

And here’s the heater above the end of my lathe, you can see where it was leaking:

So, using a technique I learned from Lumberjocks, I got it clean up nicely. I used som steel wool and some WD-40. I am happy with the results but there are still minor scares. I can live with that.

Once that was cleaned up I applied the lubricant from my teacher, it works great and should prevent another episode like this from happening again.

3 comments so far

Good thing you found it early on, Ryan. The lube from your teacher sure came in handy. I am happy for you that the damage wasn’t too bad and you were able to buff the rust out. That’s what I call a ‘happy accident’.